That xMax technology is patented etc. It uses a low power signal to orchestrate the use of very low power signals in what is 'normally' the noise bands adjacent to the desired signal. That is to say, it uses multiple frequencies, but at such low power it only looks like noise. It is both clever and capable. The real trouble is that it
1 - is owned by a single vendor, 2 - has yet to be approved by the FCC, 3 - still needs to pass more testing stages before anyone will dare use it.
Even though it is a sound technology, it does something that other tech has not been allowed to do: use adjacent spectrum that is not licensed to the operator. There are significant hurdles to this technology being used.
This is the reason that science fiction writers will always have a job... nothing in any book can be nearly as bizare as the real world when the laws of the US and/or politicians are involved....
Even if no patent is issued, I am unbelievably dumbfounded by this application. Copyright should apply, not patent law... As soon as these kinds of dweebs start messing with patents and online content, delivery, and features, no one in the US will be able to watch or listen to anything, and all the past Hugo award winners will be sitting in their dens laughing, mumbling over and over, "we told you so"
It amazes me that anyone will simply settle for believing in ID (my family included) because it doesn't bother to explore or learn, it is simply settling for the idea that "oh, its too big and complex for me to understand, so some intelligent being must have done it, some greater person must have done it, so there is no point in me trying to understand it"
It doesn't matter 'who' or what created the universe or life, science is about discovering as much as we can about it. 60+ billion year old bones doesn't jive with ID or Christianity. There are thousands of ways to argue, but my point is that who cares... they are BOTH theories, and arguing that one is better or more right than the other is simply making yourself a zealot, and worthy of dispise, or worse, belittlement.
Its just sad that with so much information at our collective disposal, that we still have this kind of zealotry involved in simple things like presenting THEORIES...
Can someone explain to me how the ads work in the first place? I might be sounding naive, but I use ad-block, popup-block, and flash-block... Who actually views, never mind clicks on google ads? I guess I'm either too geeky, or too "glass is half empty" to try clicking on anything I didn't ask to be displayed.
While this might be off topic, I agree with you completely. My part in that levelling process is to not buy from Wal*marts, or goods that are cheap to manufacture and stamped "Made in not-the-usa"... not really much of a protest, and I am considering the process of manufacturing some of these goods in the USA in order to help stem the tide of manufacturing jobs going overseas. While that many not be thought out completely yet, it is brewing in my head.
Microbrewers are taking import sales in many instances. Why can't American's make coffee cups and t-shirts? It just seems to me that there is a need for it now. There is also a move to source cheap labor in areas of North America that are traditionally cheaper labor costs. A call center in Idaho or Alabama has more benefits than one in China... at least for American services. Of course, I'm leaving out a lot of details here, but the idea is sound.
BTW, buying only USA made products is not an easy chore... it should be... at least in my opinion.
P.S. if you are trying to figure out my politics, don't bother, they are all over the map, and judging by politicians, I can't really tell which party I'm with either.
If they have to market it on commercials, its probably not worth what you have to pay for it.
I would think that "word of mouth" advertising would work quite a bit better if your product was worth paying for? Perhaps I'm just cynical, but I am thinking that this is no better than commercials, but you can't switch the channel...this is more "in your face"
Arrggg I'm having memories of people selling household cleaning stuff door to door while "working their way through college"... and then there is that other venerable vocation where most participants are 'working their way through college' (wink wink)
Seriously, how does this help companies that already have GLOBAL brand name recognition?
that this will cut down on piracy, but it will certainly be interesting to watch what happens. This is one area where DRM would work very well. There are others, of course, but this one application is a good place for DRM and encryption etc.
Besides, all those call center reps need a night out once in a while
This could be a good thing. The GSA does well for registered websites, but I'm not sure what it will do for standard files. If searchable files on the local machines have to be tagged as searchable by the user, and not done by default, then anyone can publish information to the companies repository of information without having access to a website, or needing to get the document published, just tag the document with a couple of keywords or some such, and off it goes to the internal wiki... or something like that anyway. That could be a very good collaboration tool, despite my poor explanation.
By having to purposely publish a document, the default is that your data is not published, thus allowing you to email your family without fear of publishing the holiday party plans at your mom's house.
Likewise, all those involved with a project can publish to that project's wiki without serious effort, just right-click and select the keywords etc. or something like that anyway.
When the FBI went to do wiretaps on regular phones, they ended up having to have a court order and evidence of a crime being committed or in progress. This is much the same thing, however there is a much bigger effort involved. To get the cellular company to track your phone:
1 - It won't be accurate as GPS 2 - It won't be easy, and will take much effort 3 - Cellular is much easier than Voice over WiFi, but still takes a lot of work 4 - Tracking the location of a cellular phone is nearly stupid, especially if its a 'go' phone that you can simply throw away 5 - Knowing where a phone is, doesn't tell the cops anything unless they can also prove you were with it
The technical issues around this are just too many to make it of any real use. Real bad guys (not the stupid ones) already know how to get around this. If you are not a bad guy, you are not worth the effort to get a court order for, and believe me, cellular companies are not going to go through the motions without a warrant (I have some experience here) because it costs money. Tracking joe bloggs' cell phone just for kicks is not going to happen.
The more interesting things that can be done is to use the cellphone service to locate possible victims in collapsed buildings etc. in a disaster. Say, New Orleans 9th ward, if there is a working cellphone found, there is probably someone with it. Tracking cellphone positions (without personally identifying information) can lead to better service if you know where they are all at (usually) during different periods of the day. There are social welfare implications to this type of knowledge, and they are good things too. The trouble is that it will take something like an IBM supercomputer to collect and use the information in a useful way.
Until the police / authorities run the cellular networks, there is not a lot to worry about on this particular issue.
Things like this put an interesting spin on science in general. Trying not to be off topic here, but if we are to reach anything like a utopian state (think Star Trek here) then we, as a race, have to overcome quite a few thresholds. The number of people on the planet is one, the fact that modern medicine is allowing more mutations to survive, including weak mutations (read that as mutations that weaken the population over time rather than insert survival traits like immunity to AIDS).
The things that we are doing through science for money is going to become a wall that will stop us in the future, or can. Right now, it is unknown if our vegetable and foodstuffs are actually as valuable to the human body as they are supposed to be. I'm not talking about hamburgers, but raw vegetables. Pesticides and genetic modifications of crops is changing how they are used by the body.
Its not improbable that scientists could insert the immunity genes via foodstuffs in the near future, rather like making us all part of a super race... or rather the benefactors of the genetic makeup of superhumans. This process, in the course of history, has always wiped much of the world clean of the weaker specimens, leaving those with the stronger mutations to live on. That in turn drags down the rest of the population as genetic weakness is passed on.
This is a reasonable idea, just give the good genes to everyone.... but morally, that is the wrong thing to do. It will turn out that only those with an extra $150k will get the therapy... no insurance will cover it, 3rd world citizens can't buy it, and its not so different than what some of Hitler's folks were attempting to do (at least in some respects)...
So, will it be superhumans or ginormous global conglomerates that run the future earth?
So MS sends 18 million spam messages (presumably to you and I) and that is called research?
Something that intrigues me is: Why hasn't anyone in law enforcement done this? If they already have, why is anyone listening to MS? Why is this news?
If law enforcement agencies are not doing this, I want them fired... well, that might be a knee-jerk reaction, but hellsbells, this is just plain common sense?
mention that much of the power loss and heat generation is due to thousands of power supplies in each data center. If data center racked computers used DC power, the power conversion takes place in one area, and only heat generated by power usage is generated in the data center. This reduces power losses due to multiple AC/DC conversions, as well as the heat generated in those conversions. Less heat means less AirCon is needed, so less power there too. This is such a simple thing to do as well. Most huge telecom or carrier grade equipment is buit for -48vdc operations. The ROI for running DC data centers is even money in very few months of operation. The equipment already exists, so its not new, just needs to be implemented.
Additionally, when your data center power is DC, the AC source can be from anywhere, meaning that if you find a local generation facility that is cheap to run, you can reduce the amount of energy that you have to purchase from the grid.
The trick to making aircon units efficient is not generating the heat in the first place. Despite what CPU heat there is, power conversion accounts for huge amounts of data center heat.
Try replacing CRTs with LED displays too, less heat generated, less power used, less aircon required.
IMHO, replacing CPUs to save energy is the least 'bang for buck' energy savings thing you can do, even if it is popular to talk about. The only place it really matters to people is in laptops.... The data center is a place they could care less about CPU heat... for the most part.
/. is great... just how do you get to be offtopic AND insightful?
No, while bankers might be criminals, the point was that even if the mistake was something so small as my bank account, I'd get a different bank. Letting criminals go early is bad, and letting them go late is a crime in its own right, though some might disagree.
Seems to me that the issue at hand is not the way F/OSS works, but how China can work F/OSS.
FTFA: "If China manages to set up a Linux community, it could take advantage of the talents and resources of the global community to better develop and promote Linux and foster top-notch software developers, Lu said."
While MS has had a good run of dominating the software industry, it would appear that there are those that don't want to play ball with MS, and are looking at ways to go around that little licensing issue.
Linux can milk a cow, but how do you milk an industry without a licensing scheme that fills your bank account? Is there plans for China to be the next big 'outsourcing' server for software development?
FTFA: "Just like the Borg of sci-fi legend, the bacteria must stay alive during their assimilation so that they do not leak any internal fluids and lose their shape. The bacteria can survive for about two days without nutrients, says Saraf. "
Now I know how to get rid of those pesky squirrels... all I need is a hungry borg lawn robot...
arrggghh Not that I care about French, but languages in general. I had it right, but then put the x on the end, which of course, makes it plural... Fruedian slip perhaps?
Three billion dollars is only a drop in the bucket to what the campaign contributions will be. Despite anything that can be said about this program, its ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.
First, there is the money raised by auctioning RF spectrum licenses. Second, there is the fact that all will be digital at that time, and someone has to get distribution pork. Third, MS and others are already lining the politicians pockets to make everything come out on their side.
We (the USA), as a nation (if not a larger audience), have failed miserably to trace where the money will be going. This 'subsidy' of HDTV set top tuners is nothing more than the low hanging fruit on a very large and prolific tree. Currently, the rule of the land is that when this happens, cable companies will not have to share thier pipe to your house with anyone else. This is supposed to foster more competative and wireless services. Fiber, cable, DSL, and broadcast mediums will have to work hard to keep up with new broadband all-IP services. EVERYONE will have to have a new set-top tuner box... This 3 billion is for the people in mobile homes in deepest darkest Arkansas and such places, who will not pay for a new HDTV set to get three local channels and PBS.
What is at stake is a very big pie, and everyone wants one or more of the pieces: Digital movies on demand 24/7, digital music on demand 24/7, IP radio and television, mobile IPTV and radio, VoIP calling with both mobile and fixed, and the list literally goes on for hours.
As soon as there is a huge ubiquitous (I dislike that word) IP network, we can begin offering services like your fridge that keeps the shopping list up to date, emails it to you at the grocery store on your PDA, or automatically enters it to the local grocer and a high school kid shows up with the groceries at your door at 5:15 p.m. That is just one scenario, and there are thousands more.
The real issue is who will be selling you those services? If you have comcast cable, you can bet they will offer them, but so will your wireless carrier, and the WiMax network provider and the WiFi provider, and it will be worse than you can imagine for billing and value for services rendered. Can you imagine a refridgerator that is only compatible with Comcast? or worse, AOL?
What is happening in the news currently is only the tip of the iceburg, and I'm talking about one much larger than sank the Titanic!
I'm sorely hoping that F/OSS has a strong hand of guidance on how such services are offered and how they are compatible. All this DRM @!#$@$% is far more dangerous to your future health than you have yet thought of, because more than music and movies is involved. I am hoping that the F/OSS community has such things in the scope of where their development efforts are going. I know that MS and others already have this on their radar scopes.
--
Every so often in history, it appears that someone from the future has come back to tell us something. Did Linus return to fix the future?
All the good comments aside, could this end up like a cure for the terminally stupid?
If its possible to cure brain diseases with this process(s), couldn't you also fix things like bad memory? or turn people in to 'lawn mower men' kind of people? What happens when you augment the wetware of 'normal' people? Would they stop smoking? Could you break peoples ingrained habits with a wetware upgrade?
The implications are way more than anyone has mentioned yet...
If you look at human minds/brains as a wetware machine, then some very odd thinking patterns have been (more or less) shown to be wetware problems (epilepsy etc.) and if that is so, can we cure all kinds of psychosis with a wetware upgrade? How does that affect our views of god, humanity, and disease? What if we can make people smarter than Einstein? Science fiction stories have had fields days with this kind of stuff.
If we can augment or repair natural decay, could we also tinker with the endocrine system in general? Perhaps diabetes is just a failed ROM chip initially? Would Thyroidism just be a Flash chip change?
This is indeed exciting, but also very scary. We have had stories about countries not getting enough vaccines for aids and now H5N1 etc. What kind of abuses can this lead to, and how do we set out rules for how this sort of thing should be dealt with?
All we need is one Dr Moreaux (sp) to mess up and everything could get very whacked out indeed.
Or do others feel that multibillion dollar companies get away with selling alpha software? As far as I can remember, most companies put out alpha and beta software to let users test it in production environments. I could name a few here, but we have all probably dealt with this issue.
One thing that is nice to see, the group developing Wine have no illusions, and freely admit that you might have problems using the software. Despite that, I know many people who use Wine so they don't need MS operating systems. Since my adventure began to rip MS products out of my home and business networks, I have found a couple of programs that just are not available for *nix and so far, have limped along on an old Win98SE box. Wine is my next step.
Along with others here I say, "so its alpha?", THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
The frog and the scorpion? With much pleading and swearing of oaths of non-agression, a scorpion convinces a frog to take him across a river on the frogs back. As they reach the shore, the scorpion thanks the frog, then promptly stings the frog. As the frog lays dying and twitching, he asks the scorpion why he stung him.
The scorpion simply replies: I'm a scorpion, what did you expect me to do?
I really am weary of anything that Microsoft does now. They just got caught with a bad license arrangement for music players!! WTF, I wouldn't trust that scorpion for any amount of money or good will.
I don't even care if there is no viable business alternative, I'd just like to see Microsoft die and wither! We've seen and suffered their monopolistic business practices long enough. In the words of a fairly well liked First Lady: JUST SAY NO! to Microsoft !!!!
It is high time that the drum beat of the digital age began conquering the lands it has not yet subjegated. That sounds harsh, but what I mean is that until digital content, and more importantly, digital distribution is ubiquitous (I dislike that word) there will be no revolution in the digital entertainment world. Until the entire world holds the *AA business model up for ridicule there will be no change worth reporting on the common man's news channel.
I really don't care who makes digital music available in any country, I just care that it happens. Hoooray for music... horaayyy for music unfettered by malicious middlemen distribution companies. It is aobut time that musicians began getting paid for their music without all the middleman crap. In this case, the digital age moves ahead of current technology to support the small businessman, small business, and the artist.
Copyright and patent be damned, this is a *GOOD* thing.
Personally, I've not listened to commercial radio for a long time, it SUCKS. I do support Internet radio with my money, its worth it. Its time for all of the old business model to crumble, and crumble fast and hard... fsck the *AA and their Italian sports cars... (okay, that wasn't really PC)
Slashdot Mirror
That xMax technology is patented etc. It uses a low power signal to orchestrate the use of very low power signals in what is 'normally' the noise bands adjacent to the desired signal. That is to say, it uses multiple frequencies, but at such low power it only looks like noise. It is both clever and capable. The real trouble is that it
1 - is owned by a single vendor,
2 - has yet to be approved by the FCC,
3 - still needs to pass more testing stages before anyone will dare use it.
Even though it is a sound technology, it does something that other tech has not been allowed to do: use adjacent spectrum that is not licensed to the operator. There are significant hurdles to this technology being used.
This is the reason that science fiction writers will always have a job... nothing in any book can be nearly as bizare as the real world when the laws of the US and/or politicians are involved....
Even if no patent is issued, I am unbelievably dumbfounded by this application. Copyright should apply, not patent law... As soon as these kinds of dweebs start messing with patents and online content, delivery, and features, no one in the US will be able to watch or listen to anything, and all the past Hugo award winners will be sitting in their dens laughing, mumbling over and over, "we told you so"
It amazes me that anyone will simply settle for believing in ID (my family included) because it doesn't bother to explore or learn, it is simply settling for the idea that "oh, its too big and complex for me to understand, so some intelligent being must have done it, some greater person must have done it, so there is no point in me trying to understand it"
It doesn't matter 'who' or what created the universe or life, science is about discovering as much as we can about it. 60+ billion year old bones doesn't jive with ID or Christianity. There are thousands of ways to argue, but my point is that who cares... they are BOTH theories, and arguing that one is better or more right than the other is simply making yourself a zealot, and worthy of dispise, or worse, belittlement.
Its just sad that with so much information at our collective disposal, that we still have this kind of zealotry involved in simple things like presenting THEORIES...
fsck! I forgot about that... not many 'average' users are smart enough, or industrious enough to check links.... like http://www.globalbank.com/login.asp@www.wegotu.fr/ login?newsucker=
I've had to instruct my family on such things.
Can someone explain to me how the ads work in the first place? I might be sounding naive, but I use ad-block, popup-block, and flash-block... Who actually views, never mind clicks on google ads? I guess I'm either too geeky, or too "glass is half empty" to try clicking on anything I didn't ask to be displayed.
Is the world really THAT gullible?
While this might be off topic, I agree with you completely. My part in that levelling process is to not buy from Wal*marts, or goods that are cheap to manufacture and stamped "Made in not-the-usa"... not really much of a protest, and I am considering the process of manufacturing some of these goods in the USA in order to help stem the tide of manufacturing jobs going overseas. While that many not be thought out completely yet, it is brewing in my head.
Microbrewers are taking import sales in many instances. Why can't American's make coffee cups and t-shirts? It just seems to me that there is a need for it now. There is also a move to source cheap labor in areas of North America that are traditionally cheaper labor costs. A call center in Idaho or Alabama has more benefits than one in China... at least for American services. Of course, I'm leaving out a lot of details here, but the idea is sound.
BTW, buying only USA made products is not an easy chore... it should be... at least in my opinion.
P.S. if you are trying to figure out my politics, don't bother, they are all over the map, and judging by politicians, I can't really tell which party I'm with either.
If they have to market it on commercials, its probably not worth what you have to pay for it.
... and then there is that other venerable vocation where most participants are 'working their way through college' (wink wink)
I would think that "word of mouth" advertising would work quite a bit better if your product was worth paying for? Perhaps I'm just cynical, but I am thinking that this is no better than commercials, but you can't switch the channel...this is more "in your face"
Arrggg I'm having memories of people selling household cleaning stuff door to door while "working their way through college"
Seriously, how does this help companies that already have GLOBAL brand name recognition?
that this will cut down on piracy, but it will certainly be interesting to watch what happens. This is one area where DRM would work very well. There are others, of course, but this one application is a good place for DRM and encryption etc.
Besides, all those call center reps need a night out once in a while
This could be a good thing. The GSA does well for registered websites, but I'm not sure what it will do for standard files. If searchable files on the local machines have to be tagged as searchable by the user, and not done by default, then anyone can publish information to the companies repository of information without having access to a website, or needing to get the document published, just tag the document with a couple of keywords or some such, and off it goes to the internal wiki... or something like that anyway. That could be a very good collaboration tool, despite my poor explanation.
By having to purposely publish a document, the default is that your data is not published, thus allowing you to email your family without fear of publishing the holiday party plans at your mom's house.
Likewise, all those involved with a project can publish to that project's wiki without serious effort, just right-click and select the keywords etc. or something like that anyway.
Student SETI when they read the article? Kids looking for aliens?
"I launched a satellite..." is a hell of a way to start a term paper!
When the FBI went to do wiretaps on regular phones, they ended up having to have a court order and evidence of a crime being committed or in progress. This is much the same thing, however there is a much bigger effort involved. To get the cellular company to track your phone:
1 - It won't be accurate as GPS
2 - It won't be easy, and will take much effort
3 - Cellular is much easier than Voice over WiFi, but still takes a lot of work
4 - Tracking the location of a cellular phone is nearly stupid, especially if its a 'go' phone that you can simply throw away
5 - Knowing where a phone is, doesn't tell the cops anything unless they can also prove you were with it
The technical issues around this are just too many to make it of any real use. Real bad guys (not the stupid ones) already know how to get around this. If you are not a bad guy, you are not worth the effort to get a court order for, and believe me, cellular companies are not going to go through the motions without a warrant (I have some experience here) because it costs money. Tracking joe bloggs' cell phone just for kicks is not going to happen.
The more interesting things that can be done is to use the cellphone service to locate possible victims in collapsed buildings etc. in a disaster. Say, New Orleans 9th ward, if there is a working cellphone found, there is probably someone with it. Tracking cellphone positions (without personally identifying information) can lead to better service if you know where they are all at (usually) during different periods of the day. There are social welfare implications to this type of knowledge, and they are good things too. The trouble is that it will take something like an IBM supercomputer to collect and use the information in a useful way.
Until the police / authorities run the cellular networks, there is not a lot to worry about on this particular issue.
Things like this put an interesting spin on science in general. Trying not to be off topic here, but if we are to reach anything like a utopian state (think Star Trek here) then we, as a race, have to overcome quite a few thresholds. The number of people on the planet is one, the fact that modern medicine is allowing more mutations to survive, including weak mutations (read that as mutations that weaken the population over time rather than insert survival traits like immunity to AIDS).
...
The things that we are doing through science for money is going to become a wall that will stop us in the future, or can. Right now, it is unknown if our vegetable and foodstuffs are actually as valuable to the human body as they are supposed to be. I'm not talking about hamburgers, but raw vegetables. Pesticides and genetic modifications of crops is changing how they are used by the body.
Its not improbable that scientists could insert the immunity genes via foodstuffs in the near future, rather like making us all part of a super race... or rather the benefactors of the genetic makeup of superhumans. This process, in the course of history, has always wiped much of the world clean of the weaker specimens, leaving those with the stronger mutations to live on. That in turn drags down the rest of the population as genetic weakness is passed on.
This is a reasonable idea, just give the good genes to everyone.... but morally, that is the wrong thing to do. It will turn out that only those with an extra $150k will get the therapy... no insurance will cover it, 3rd world citizens can't buy it, and its not so different than what some of Hitler's folks were attempting to do (at least in some respects)
So, will it be superhumans or ginormous global conglomerates that run the future earth?
So MS sends 18 million spam messages (presumably to you and I) and that is called research?
Something that intrigues me is: Why hasn't anyone in law enforcement done this? If they already have, why is anyone listening to MS? Why is this news?
If law enforcement agencies are not doing this, I want them fired... well, that might be a knee-jerk reaction, but hellsbells, this is just plain common sense?
mention that much of the power loss and heat generation is due to thousands of power supplies in each data center. If data center racked computers used DC power, the power conversion takes place in one area, and only heat generated by power usage is generated in the data center. This reduces power losses due to multiple AC/DC conversions, as well as the heat generated in those conversions. Less heat means less AirCon is needed, so less power there too. This is such a simple thing to do as well. Most huge telecom or carrier grade equipment is buit for -48vdc operations. The ROI for running DC data centers is even money in very few months of operation. The equipment already exists, so its not new, just needs to be implemented.
Additionally, when your data center power is DC, the AC source can be from anywhere, meaning that if you find a local generation facility that is cheap to run, you can reduce the amount of energy that you have to purchase from the grid.
The trick to making aircon units efficient is not generating the heat in the first place. Despite what CPU heat there is, power conversion accounts for huge amounts of data center heat.
Try replacing CRTs with LED displays too, less heat generated, less power used, less aircon required.
IMHO, replacing CPUs to save energy is the least 'bang for buck' energy savings thing you can do, even if it is popular to talk about. The only place it really matters to people is in laptops.... The data center is a place they could care less about CPU heat... for the most part.
/. is great... just how do you get to be offtopic AND insightful?
No, while bankers might be criminals, the point was that even if the mistake was something so small as my bank account, I'd get a different bank. Letting criminals go early is bad, and letting them go late is a crime in its own right, though some might disagree.
I hope the software is run on Windows... If my bank was off by that much even once, I'd get a new bank!
I'm not saying that mistakes don't happen, but that's bad! Fortunately no one like John Wayne Gayce was let out mistakenly.
What are the odds that the 'software glitch' has a SSN and enjoys fast food?
Seems to me that the issue at hand is not the way F/OSS works, but how China can work F/OSS.
FTFA: "If China manages to set up a Linux community, it could take advantage of the talents and resources of the global community to better develop and promote Linux and foster top-notch software developers, Lu said."
While MS has had a good run of dominating the software industry, it would appear that there are those that don't want to play ball with MS, and are looking at ways to go around that little licensing issue.
Linux can milk a cow, but how do you milk an industry without a licensing scheme that fills your bank account? Is there plans for China to be the next big 'outsourcing' server for software development?
FTFA: "Just like the Borg of sci-fi legend, the bacteria must stay alive during their assimilation so that they do not leak any internal fluids and lose their shape. The bacteria can survive for about two days without nutrients, says Saraf. "
Now I know how to get rid of those pesky squirrels... all I need is a hungry borg lawn robot...
arrggghh Not that I care about French, but languages in general. I had it right, but then put the x on the end, which of course, makes it plural... Fruedian slip perhaps?
Three billion dollars is only a drop in the bucket to what the campaign contributions will be. Despite anything that can be said about this program, its ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.
First, there is the money raised by auctioning RF spectrum licenses.
Second, there is the fact that all will be digital at that time, and someone has to get distribution pork.
Third, MS and others are already lining the politicians pockets to make everything come out on their side.
We (the USA), as a nation (if not a larger audience), have failed miserably to trace where the money will be going. This 'subsidy' of HDTV set top tuners is nothing more than the low hanging fruit on a very large and prolific tree. Currently, the rule of the land is that when this happens, cable companies will not have to share thier pipe to your house with anyone else. This is supposed to foster more competative and wireless services. Fiber, cable, DSL, and broadcast mediums will have to work hard to keep up with new broadband all-IP services. EVERYONE will have to have a new set-top tuner box... This 3 billion is for the people in mobile homes in deepest darkest Arkansas and such places, who will not pay for a new HDTV set to get three local channels and PBS.
What is at stake is a very big pie, and everyone wants one or more of the pieces: Digital movies on demand 24/7, digital music on demand 24/7, IP radio and television, mobile IPTV and radio, VoIP calling with both mobile and fixed, and the list literally goes on for hours.
As soon as there is a huge ubiquitous (I dislike that word) IP network, we can begin offering services like your fridge that keeps the shopping list up to date, emails it to you at the grocery store on your PDA, or automatically enters it to the local grocer and a high school kid shows up with the groceries at your door at 5:15 p.m. That is just one scenario, and there are thousands more.
The real issue is who will be selling you those services? If you have comcast cable, you can bet they will offer them, but so will your wireless carrier, and the WiMax network provider and the WiFi provider, and it will be worse than you can imagine for billing and value for services rendered. Can you imagine a refridgerator that is only compatible with Comcast? or worse, AOL?
What is happening in the news currently is only the tip of the iceburg, and I'm talking about one much larger than sank the Titanic!
I'm sorely hoping that F/OSS has a strong hand of guidance on how such services are offered and how they are compatible. All this DRM @!#$@$% is far more dangerous to your future health than you have yet thought of, because more than music and movies is involved. I am hoping that the F/OSS community has such things in the scope of where their development efforts are going. I know that MS and others already have this on their radar scopes.
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Every so often in history, it appears that someone from the future has come back to tell us something. Did Linus return to fix the future?
All the good comments aside, could this end up like a cure for the terminally stupid?
If its possible to cure brain diseases with this process(s), couldn't you also fix things like bad memory? or turn people in to 'lawn mower men' kind of people? What happens when you augment the wetware of 'normal' people? Would they stop smoking? Could you break peoples ingrained habits with a wetware upgrade?
The implications are way more than anyone has mentioned yet...
If you look at human minds/brains as a wetware machine, then some very odd thinking patterns have been (more or less) shown to be wetware problems (epilepsy etc.) and if that is so, can we cure all kinds of psychosis with a wetware upgrade? How does that affect our views of god, humanity, and disease? What if we can make people smarter than Einstein? Science fiction stories have had fields days with this kind of stuff.
If we can augment or repair natural decay, could we also tinker with the endocrine system in general? Perhaps diabetes is just a failed ROM chip initially? Would Thyroidism just be a Flash chip change?
This is indeed exciting, but also very scary. We have had stories about countries not getting enough vaccines for aids and now H5N1 etc. What kind of abuses can this lead to, and how do we set out rules for how this sort of thing should be dealt with?
All we need is one Dr Moreaux (sp) to mess up and everything could get very whacked out indeed.
I'm rather perplexed at the implications.
Or do others feel that multibillion dollar companies get away with selling alpha software? As far as I can remember, most companies put out alpha and beta software to let users test it in production environments. I could name a few here, but we have all probably dealt with this issue.
One thing that is nice to see, the group developing Wine have no illusions, and freely admit that you might have problems using the software. Despite that, I know many people who use Wine so they don't need MS operating systems. Since my adventure began to rip MS products out of my home and business networks, I have found a couple of programs that just are not available for *nix and so far, have limped along on an old Win98SE box. Wine is my next step.
Along with others here I say, "so its alpha?", THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
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Yes, if it works for me, I contribute dollars.
The frog and the scorpion?
With much pleading and swearing of oaths of non-agression, a scorpion convinces a frog to take him across a river on the frogs back. As they reach the shore, the scorpion thanks the frog, then promptly stings the frog. As the frog lays dying and twitching, he asks the scorpion why he stung him.
The scorpion simply replies: I'm a scorpion, what did you expect me to do?
I really am weary of anything that Microsoft does now. They just got caught with a bad license arrangement for music players!! WTF, I wouldn't trust that scorpion for any amount of money or good will.
I don't even care if there is no viable business alternative, I'd just like to see Microsoft die and wither! We've seen and suffered their monopolistic business practices long enough. In the words of a fairly well liked First Lady: JUST SAY NO! to Microsoft !!!!
It is high time that the drum beat of the digital age began conquering the lands it has not yet subjegated. That sounds harsh, but what I mean is that until digital content, and more importantly, digital distribution is ubiquitous (I dislike that word) there will be no revolution in the digital entertainment world. Until the entire world holds the *AA business model up for ridicule there will be no change worth reporting on the common man's news channel.
:-)
I really don't care who makes digital music available in any country, I just care that it happens. Hoooray for music... horaayyy for music unfettered by malicious middlemen distribution companies. It is aobut time that musicians began getting paid for their music without all the middleman crap. In this case, the digital age moves ahead of current technology to support the small businessman, small business, and the artist.
Copyright and patent be damned, this is a *GOOD* thing.
Personally, I've not listened to commercial radio for a long time, it SUCKS. I do support Internet radio with my money, its worth it. Its time for all of the old business model to crumble, and crumble fast and hard... fsck the *AA and their Italian sports cars... (okay, that wasn't really PC)
I'm just glad to see the old model breaking!!!
Just how cool is it to be paid to test "stuff" like that?
Fsck! I need a job like that!